Center for AIDS Outreach and Prevention
Since 1986, the Center for AIDS Outreach and Prevention (AOP) has used daily street-based outreach to deliver HIV harm-reduction messages, materials and strategies to injecting drug users who put themselves and others at risk for HIV infection and other blood borne pathogens because of their substance misuse and sexual behaviors. Trained outreach workers, who come from cultural and experiential backgrounds similar to their clients, provide AIDS prevention and intervention services to New York City's drug users, their sexual partners, their families and communities. Using the delicate trust-building approach of a caring, consistent presence, this dedicated team of skilled and savvy counselor-educators makes available service referrals, needle-cleaning kits and condoms to reduce the spread of HIV infection and transmission, and educational literature about treatments for drug misuse, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis B and C. This project is funded by the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS).
AOP has become a national model, studied by NDRI's own and other researchers. The staff has compiled a book of rich anecdotal data that captures the ethnographic methodology of the program and its success in conducting street-based interventions. AOP conducts program evaluations and provides technical assistance to groups desiring to establish similar models of street-based outreach intervention.
Senior Members of AOP staff are: Bruce Stepherson, MPH, Director; Gilbert Ildefonso, Regional Field Director; Robert Carmona, LMSW, CPP, Supportive Services Director.